Meant For the Fire
by ASongInMyHead
Summary: 100 Royai Prompts Challenge. 4: Grave. "Well. Dying was the only kindness he ever showed me."
1. Military Personnel

1\. Military Personnel

"I don't think I can recall," Riza muses into the silent room, "what it feels like to be human."

Roy looks up, a little startled by an interruption in the previously silent room. It's very late, and the office is otherwise empty, but for its' two occupants. He tilts his head and peers over at her desk. Riza looks down at her paperwork, bangs hiding her eyes, but a bitter smile plays at her lips.

 _Ah._

Everyone voices their pain in different ways. Roy, personally, is prone to bouts of self-pity, of staring at walls as memories play against his eyes like film reels, of drinking whiskey in the earliest hours of the morning in hopes of getting just a few hours of sleep.

From what he has seen, Riza locks her suffering up inside of herself, so that it is invisible to nearly everyone. She rarely lets her pain rise up, but sometimes she makes light of it, as if the validity of her own unhappiness is laughable.

"What do you mean?" He asks, forcing his voice not waver, to pretend that he doesn't understand.

She meets his eyes then, the desk light casting shadows over her face. She looks exhausted, and much older than her twenty years. Good god, she's only twenty, he thinks, tapping his pen against his lips. Though he's only older by three years, it suddenly seems like it matters, like it did when they were children.

This time last year, they had been sweating and bleeding and killing in Ishval.

Roy breaks away from her stare and looks back down at his paper work. He's been reading the same line over and over again. Something about a thwarted robbery attempt, or an attempted break-and-entry, he's not quite sure. The blue-black ink on the page blurs under his tired eyes, and he drops his pen. He looks up and she's still watching him.

Maybe she doesn't want to talk. Maybe he should go back to his work, maybe she doesn't want him to bother her. Words gather at the back of his throat and die unspoken. Staying silent is always the easiest option. If you keep quiet, your words cannot be used against you. Unfortunately, if Roy Mustang was tremendously bad at anything, it was keeping his mouth shut.

"Y-you didn't answer my question, Lieutenant," he tries, cringing at the stutter. He waits and presses his blunt fingernails into the palm of his hands to prevent them from shaking.

"I don't feel human anymore," she finally whispers, and Roy suddenly feels very cold. "I feel detached from people, like I am watching them from far away. As if I don't belong with them anymore."

Roy squeezes his eyes shut, blocking everything out for a moment. He thinks back to the previous week, when a cadet had accidentally shouldered him while walking by, how he had narrowed his eyes and looked at the younger man like he was a target. His fingers had pressed against themselves as if he were about to snap, before he remembered he was in the mess hall, not the battlefield. No one had seen his slip up, but he had spent the rest of the day with a remarkable urge to vomit.

Roy opens his eyes and rises to his feet, his legs shaking ever so slightly. Riza has slumped down in her chair, looking very small in her bulky uniform. He staggers to her chair and drops to his knees, as if in prayer. She looks down upon him, her dark eyes widening. She shoots a quick glance at the office door, but it is still firmly closed. Slowly, he reaches a hand up and she tentatively grasps it. Their arms are both shaking, but Roy cannot tell who the source is. Riza shifts her hand so that her grip is firm, and covers his knuckles with her other hand.

"How do we keep moving forward?" She breathes. He can smell coffee on her lips and see the fear that is no doubt mirrored by his own eyes.

He manages a wavering smile. "By leaning on each other." This, at least, is something he knows.

"Is that healthy?" She asks dryly, a touch of her normal self.

"Maybe not," he admits with a low chuckle. "But it's what we've got."

"Then it has to be enough," she squeezes his hand with both of hers. "I _need_ you."

"You have me. And I need you."

"Then you have me," she vows, looking down at him with those familiar eyes. She releases him, and he rises to his feet, his legs now steady as ever.

"Perhaps we should call it a night," Roy sneaks a look at the door, and then back at her. "It's nearly midnight, and we need to be well-rested. There's a lot to be done, Lieutenant, and I'll need you with me to do it. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir," she salutes from her chair and smiles. It's a small and tired smile, but this time it's real.

* * *

Thanks for reading! I know everyone's done the 100 prompt challenge, but I wanted to join in on the fun.


	2. Gunshot

2\. Gunshot

The wind whistles through the treetops, dusting snow from the branches and onto the two teenagers walking through the woods below. The girl has a shotgun stung across her back. The gun is from a generation before her time, and meant for someone of a greater stature, but she carries it proudly. The boy trails a little behind, pausing to inspect a disturbance in the snow.

"Miss Hawkeye! Are these tracks?" He calls to the girl. A shock of black hair escapes his from his hat when he squats down, and he brushes it away with a frustrated huff.

The girl— Miss Hawkeye— hurries back to him, pressing a finger against her lips.

"If they are, you'll have scared away whatever made them," she hisses with a furrowed brow. The boy blushes and looks away, appropriately chastened. Miss Hawkeye sighs and softens her gaze. She crouches down and lifts up the brush of branches. "Well, you _were_ right, Mister Mustang. But there's a light layer of snow overtop, see? It was a squirrel, I think, but it hasn't been around for awhile."

She stands up quickly, but the boy—Mister Mustang— stays low to the ground and peers at the tracks, trying to see what she sees.

"We should keep moving," Miss Hawkeye insists. "It's supposed to snow again today."

She had been surprised when the older boy had asked to accompany her on her hunting outing. They had always been polite and friendly with each other, but she hadn't known that he was interested in her more adventurous pursuits. Or, really anything she did, at all.

Mister Mustang rises and she turns away to scan the woods. She thinks she can feel his eyes on the back of her head, but it feels rude to assume.

"Who taught you to hunt?" He asks, keeping his voice comically quiet. Miss Hawkeye's lips twitch.

"I found this in the attic a few years ago," she gestures to the rifle on her back as they start to move forward. "It must have belonged to my grandfather. I've never met him, but I've heard he's in the military. There's a woman in the village, Lydia Albrecht. She's a retired sergeant; I asked her to teach me to shoot. She taught me the basics, but she's quite old and I had to do most of the practical training on my own. But I have become quite accomplished, due to practise and natural talent."

There is no bragging lilt in Miss Hawkeye's voice, no teasing smile. She is stating a fact.

Mister Mustang stares at her with wide eyes for a moment, trying to recall if he'd ever heard her say so much at once. "Why'd you want to learn to hunt at all?"

She stops and frowns at him, picturing his warm, city home. She can't imagine he knows what it's like to wake up and hope that he'll have enough to eat that day.

"Because," she tells him simply, "I had to."

He looks ashamed once more, and Miss Hawkeye can't help but feel a twinge of guilt pull at her heart.

"Do you want to try?" She asks, slinging the gun off her shoulders. Mister Mustang takes an involuntary step back.

"Alright," he agrees, looking just a little nervous. She passes the gun to him, and they brush hands. She pictures the fingers beneath his gloves; long and thin, without the callouses that mark hers.

Miss Hawkeye hovers around him and pulls at his arms and pokes at his legs, bullying him into proper form.

"You're standing quite poorly," she scoffs. "You'll want to widen your stance or you're going to fall over when you shoot."

"I won't fall," he retorts with mock indigence, careful to keep the gun pointed at the ground. "I'm very strong, I'll have you know."

"It doesn't matter how strong you are if your stance is off."

Always the attentive student, Mister Mustang gives in and widens the space between his feet. He glances over at Miss Hawkeye for approval, and she can't help but crack a smile.

They stay like for a while, as Miss Hawkeye needles him to have perfect form before he even considers putting a finger on the trigger. Despite a few protests at the length of the instruction ("Can I move soon? My feet are freezing!") and a few muttered asides ("I _told_ you to put on an extra pair of socks.") Mister Mustang eventually achieves a form that is declared "not completely terrible" by his newfound tutor. She takes the rifle away from him briefly and demonstrates her technique and the most accurate way to hold the gun and pull the trigger. Just after passing it back to him, she sees something move in the corner of her eye.

"Mister Mustang," she mouths, tapping him on his shoulder. She points to a fat brown rabbit that is digging through the snow, not too far from where they stand.

His eyes light up, and he shrugs up his shoulders, preparing to pass the rifle back to her. Miss Hawkeye's eyes widen and her mind races. If they trade places, the noise may scare the rabbit away. But if he tries to shoot and misses, it will have been for nothing. She imagines hot rabbit stew and she feels a pang of hunger in her belly.

"No," she mouths back at him. His eyes widen as he takes in her order. She squeezes his shoulder and nods reassuringly.

She lets him go and he resumes his stance, careful to not make noise. The rabbit still moves lazily, unaware of how close it is to becoming their dinner.

His eyes flicker back to her once more, and he lifts the rifle up and points it forward. Slowly, so slowly, his fingers glide towards the trigger. With a deep breath, he fires.

The sound of the gunshot fills the quiet woods. A spot of red bursts onto the white snow. Mister Mustang staggers backwards from the impact, but doesn't fall. He recovers almost instantly, and runs toward his first kill.

Miss Hawkeye feels a swell of pride for them both. She's never taught anyone a new skill before.

"That was impressive," she admits, letting a bit of teasing into her voice. "Your form is still lacking, but you have wonderful aim."

She catches up to him just as he reaches his prey. Feeling something strange, she looks up at his face. His dark eyes are trained on the rabbit, and his skin has gone pasty. Tears cut tracks down his cheeks, and his eyes are beginning to turn red.

"Hey," she says gently, placing a hand on his arm.

He flinches away, and kneels in front of the rabbit, uncaring as snow and blood soak the knees of his trousers. He sets the rifle beside him. "I'm sorry," he says, rubbing at his eyes with his sleeve. "I'm being stupid."

"No," she says carefully. She remembers her first kill— a mourning dove— and how she had felt sick after eating it.

"I eat meat all the time," his nose has begun to run. "But this is different."

"It's personal when you kill it yourself," she agrees. She settles down in the snow beside him. They aren't touching, but she can feel the warmth of his breath.

He shoves his gloves into his coat pockets and touches the rabbit's soft, brown fur. "It gave its life for us," he muses slowly, his voice a little strained. "And we're going to turn it into our own energy."

"I suppose."

His tears have stopped and his eyes look just a little brighter. "So, we should use the energy we get from eating it to do something productive. Like, studying or cleaning. Or maybe we could finally fix that broken step on the porch. The rabbits' energy for ours; equivalent exchange."

His face breaks into that familiar grin, at odds with the tears drying on his face.

"Alright," Miss Hawkeye agrees. She hopes the admiration on her face isn't too obvious.

"Thank you for teaching me how to shoot, Miss Hawkeye," he tells her solemnly. "I think it will be easier next time."

"I think so, too," she promises. "And, if you like, you can call me Riza."

His smile falters. "Your father wouldn't like that."

"He's not here," Riza tells him with a defiant lift of her chin.

"Alright," he chuckles. "But only if you call me Roy."

"When he's not around, _Roy_ ," she agrees, and Roy nods. Riza picks up the rabbit and gets to her feet. "We should get back. There's lots to be done before we can cook it."

"What do you mean?"

"I'll have to skin it, of course."

Roy shudders. "Alright. I'll follow your lead if you'd like help." His smile is almost hopeful.

She picks up the rifle and slings it back over her shoulder. "Then let's go home, Roy Mustang. We have work to do."


	3. Battlefield

3\. Battlefield

The bar was sticky with sweat and spilt booze that never seemed to wash away. Patrons mingled with the beautiful girls, minds blooming with the possibilities of where the evening might take them, not knowing that they would likely not be going very far. The women employed by Madame Christmas were beautiful, clever and very, very picky.

Chris Mustang herself stood at the end of the bar, keeping a careful eye on everything that happened in her bar. Nothing escaped her watch. It was Friday night, and the room was packed with people looking for a little escape. Nights like those were very good for business, but kept her on her toes; they were also nights were trouble often brewed.

Despite her commitment to her lookout post, her eyes kept wandering over to a young man at the very corner of the bar.

As Chris watched, a woman slipped into the stool beside him. She touched his shoulder tentatively, and he looked over at her, smiling a little. He'd been expecting her. They stared at each other a little awkwardly, he looked like he wanted to stand to greet her respectfully, she looked like she wanted to embrace him. They did neither, but the man waved a hand at Madeline, who was serving, and she hurried over to take the woman's order. The young man gave Madeline a friendly smile, more familiar than he perhaps should have, but Chris could see how it didn't match the sadness in his tired eyes.

Chris forced herself to look away from the man, and inspected the woman instead. She wore a long red dress, too long and old-fashioned to be in style, but she looked quite lovely in it. She was a little thing, but her shoulders were broad and her arms were muscled. Her glossy black hair fell to her shoulders, and her lips were painted a deep burgundy. She raised a hand to tuck her hair behind her ears, and her side-part slid unnaturally— a wig. She had seen pictures of the woman before, though in those pictures she'd been blonde, bare-faced and dressed in military blues.

Chris Mustang had suggested that her foster son bring Riza Hawkeye to her bar many times, but it took the death of his best friend for him to finally do it.

Madeline placed a glass of red wine in front of Riza, looking around to make sure the other guests aren't watching, before waving away the offered cenz. Chris's lips twitched in a half-smile as Riza placed the money in the tip jar as soon as Madeline moved to help another patron.

Roy looked down into his whiskey, and Riza took a delicate sip of her wine. She set the glass back down on the bar and leaned over to say something in his ear. Roy shook his head and Riza raised her arm, seemed to hesitate, and placed in gently on his shoulder. It took all of Chris's willpower to not go over to her son as he leaned into Riza's shoulder and began to cry. Tucked in the corner in a room full of drunks, the couple had a fair bit of privacy, but still Riza looked around wildly, making sure she didn't see any familiar faces, before embracing him. She touched her lips to his hair and then looked up again. Her eyes met Chris's, who immediately understood that Riza had been aware of her watchful gaze the entire time. The two women stared at each other, each knowing the other, but unable to say anything without giving up their well-crafted charade. Riza gave her a respectful nod, and Chris forced herself to tear her eyes from the woman who held her crying son. She walked to the back of the room and locked herself in her office. There had been pain in Riza's eyes, and love, too. But what had given Chris just a little peace of mind was the strength in her eyes. Riza Hawkeye was holding onto Roy Mustang with no intention of letting him go. They'd lived through a war, and clearly there was more fighting to be done. Love, however, was an entirely different kind of battle.


	4. Grave

It had been four months since they had stood together at Berthold Hawkeye's grave. Four months since the funeral, four months since Roy had seen her tattoo, four months of studying and not much time for anything else at all. Roy's train was to leave that evening.

It was not clear to either of them who had lead the way back to the graveyard, but it was where they stood.

Afterwards, the conversation would feel very, very old.

("I'm sorry. I should have been there.")

("Don't be. I was the one who never wrote.")

("But what he did to you was vile. I used to look up to him, but I'll never think of him the same.")

("Well. Dying was the only kindness he ever showed me.")

("…Miss Hawkeye…")

("He's gone. I suppose you can call me Riza now.")

("Riza…")

("I did say 'I supposed'. I don't know if I'm ready yet.")

("I can wait.")

("Can you? How long?")

("A long time. I'm a patient man.")

("No, you aren't.")

("I am, for you.")

Riza said nothing. Her hair was dirty. She had a resilient pimple on her forehead that simply refused to leave. Boys never said nice things to her, and Roy was very pretty. The prettiest boys were always the cruelest. She didn't know him that well, though he had acted familiar towards her from the beginning. But Roy leaned over and kissed her sweetly on the cheek. He turned and walked back towards the house.

 _I am for you._

 _I am for you._

 _I am for you._

Perhaps she trusted him. But she did not believe him.

Not yet.


End file.
